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400 unaccompanied minors to come to Northern Va. shelter
The Trump administration is planning to bring more than 400 unaccompanied minors into Northern Virginia.
WASHINGTON (FOX 5 DC) - The Trump administration is planning to bring more unaccompanied minors into Northern Virginia. The General Services Administration posted a formal solicitation for space it's calling a "Virginia Unaccompanied Alien Children Shelter."
The facility in Northern Virginia will be used to house 440 children and will include medical and dining areas along with classrooms and two acres of outdoor recreational space.
The Department of Health and Human Services is reportedly looking to move unaccompanied minors to parts of the country where they have relatives.
FOX 5 spoke with Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, legal director of the Legal Aid Justice Center’s Immigrant Advocacy Program, who says most of the unaccompanied children coming into the U.S. have either a parent already here or another relative they’re hoping to get to. Background checks are required before the children can be released to their family members.
“We don’t want to see a perpetuation of the situation we saw this summer with kids in absolutely horrible conditions in these border patrol camps but the solution to that is not to build more of these mega warehouses for kids,” said Sandoval-Moshenberg. “It’s to get kids through a system that works and for that you need more staff not more beds.”
The Trump administration is looking to lease more than 100,000 square feet somewhere in Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William Counties and the incorporated cities and towns of Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Herndon, Vienna, or Manassas for 15 years. Bids are due on August 13.